On a hot afternoon in Billings, Montana, on July 31, 1990, the life of 60-year-old Charles William Sparboe, a male, came to a violent and tragic end. Sparboe, the owner of the Treasure State Silver & Gold coin shop, was a self-made millionaire with interests in real estate, but his true passion was the coin shop he had operated for a decade. It was there, amidst the collections he cherished, that he and his 47-year-old assistant, Catharine Newstrom, were found shot in the head.
The discovery was made after approximately $54,000 worth of coins and gold had been stolen from the shop.
In the time leading up to the murders, Sparboe had expressed unease about a new customer who had been frequenting his store. This man, presenting himself as a farmer from the nearby town of Laurel, claimed to be looking to invest a substantial sum of money from the sale of his farm into gold. Sparboe's son, Jim, also found the man's behavior to be suspicious, noting that he would park his silver Pontiac at a distance and had hands that were unusually smooth for a farmer. On the day of the murders, the younger Sparboe left the shop, leaving his father and Newstrom alone with the man. When he returned, he made the grim discovery of their bodies.
The investigation into the double homicide soon revealed a sinister pattern. The Billings police sent out a description of the crime and a composite drawing of the suspect, which triggered alarms in several other police departments. The crime was linked to a string of similar robberies and murders of coin shop owners across multiple states. The suspect was identified as Charles Thurman Sinclair, a man who had a chilling method of visiting coin shops multiple times to gain the trust of the owners before returning near closing time to rob and kill them. Sinclair, also known as the "Coin Shop Killer," was tied to at least eleven homicides and other violent crimes across the western United States.
Investigators tracked Sinclair to Kenny Lake, Alaska, where he was arrested on August 16, 1990. Authorities in Montana charged him with the murders of Sparboe and Newstrom and sought his extradition to stand trial. However, before he could face justice for his alleged crimes, Charles Thurman Sinclair died of a heart attack in his jail cell in Anchorage, Alaska, on October 30, 1990. His death left many unanswered questions and brought a sudden, unresolved end to a violent crime spree that had left a trail of devastation across several communities, including the tragic loss of Charles Sparboe and Catharine Newstrom in Billings.
